Feeling Waves
The advantage of accompanying people in psychotherapy is that I also have to learn to wade through my own darkness. How else can I be an effective companion on their journey if I am equally lost as they are? If the terrain is somewhat familiar due to having walked a similar path before, then my steps can be surer and more able to emit a certain confidence and energy that the other can pick up and be fuelled by.
***
One common concern that people bring up is on how to manage their emotions. Anxiety is host to a lot of fears, nervousness, pain, helplessness, wanting to fight, flee or perhaps tending to just freeze for lack of any agency. All of us are full of these reactions, accumulated from our past experiences and learned ways of coping. Usually our coping when confronted with difficulty is to push back our feelings. They are looked at as interfering with our rational thinking, so a disturbance. Not to be trusted or listened to. An unnecessary liability in this game of life. Press down, bury. Hold off for another day. Huwag tayo mag-drama! OA (overacting!). Tigil nga dyan! Walang mangyayari kung pure iyak lang! Be strong and don't show your feelings. I know one mother who shared that everytime her children would voice out feeling burdened, she would automatically turn on her recording, "No feelings! No feelings!" She was even proud of her style. I also recall another mother who would tend to label expression of emotions as some kind of indulgence in "psycho-babble." As if to say this is only for the weak and undeveloped psychologically.
Today it makes me cringe to hear such admonitions because I imagine the unconscious sufferings that a person experiences when having to deny what is intrinsically a part of who she is. These pains will embed further in her system, silenced until they become dormant, perhaps even split off and forgotten. But we know that the forgotten, the silenced, will rise again. Energy can only be suppressed but not eliminated. The sleeping giant will wake up one day. Like a volcano. Then we fall at mercy of its eruption.
So what might be more helpful in managing difficult emotions?
There have evolved so many different ways to deal with this. Thank God. There seems to be an evolution of consciousness that now gradually has made more of us realise that emotions and feelings are not bad in and of themselves. And not only not bad, but they possess the power of good. If we only can be more conscious of them and gradually learn to use them for our good.
How can this work in the concrete? One way is to first learn how to tune in regularly into oneself. What am I feeling right now? How was I feeling a while ago? This morning? Yesterday. Without any judgment, just name these feelings. I always like to remind patients that feelings are neither right nor wrong. They just are. Even the strongest and the most intense ones. It is not the feelings that have a right or wrong, but rather it is the actions that take place as a consequence of the feelings that have a rightness or wrongness to them.
So because they are not right nor wrong, we can dare to make a space for these as they come and go into ourselves. If and when we have learned to create a safe space within us, this space can become the holding area, or the container or simply the area within where we can safely allow the waves of feelings to pass through us. Imagine a part of us, the observing part, that can choose to stand back and watch the movie or the scene as it unfolds. What we will observe are the entry and exit of feelings. The rise and fall. The push and pull. The turbulent high wave rolling forth, and eventually the gradual lowering and receding in height of this wave. The flow in and flow out. Our space does not get diminished. Just like our observing part need not feel threatened. After all, it is only an observer. The bed of the ocean, or the land on which the typhoon passes, stays. The wind comes and goes. The harsh splashing of the waves come and go. Thunder and lightning appear then disappear. But when they are gone, silence once more. Peace once more.
I encourage the patient to name her feeling. To name the intensity level at which they are in the present moment. No judgment. No need to pretend too that this is fun. Of course it is not. There is pain you feel. The pain is real. But, the pain will not kill you or overthrow you if you don't let it. The pain may "break your bone" but will never eliminate you. It is the pain that eventually will be eliminated, when we successfully allow it to flow out.
So much to learn. So many nuances that one can add to this initial process... and even so many variations that many will also be able to contribute to this growing body of awareness of our emotions and feelings. Perhaps a million more to add on to our learning.
The point is not to master everything, but to just start with the first point. Take the first step. Start with increasing awareness of what is in the moment. Of pausing to tune inwards.
Pause, take deep breaths. In, out. In, out, In, out.. until the safe space starts to emerge. Then an an awareness that we can be in this space and just observe what comes and goes.
Beautifully staying in the present moment, without any judgments, but just simply observing. These split second moments of respite, of stillness and quiet within. These may seem empty, but they hold the fullness of all that has been, is to come, and what is.
The feeling waves are just that - ever in motion, but when we just stay present to their motion, we and the waves are still, together. One.
Can you figure that one out? 🤔😉😀
One common concern that people bring up is on how to manage their emotions. Anxiety is host to a lot of fears, nervousness, pain, helplessness, wanting to fight, flee or perhaps tending to just freeze for lack of any agency. All of us are full of these reactions, accumulated from our past experiences and learned ways of coping. Usually our coping when confronted with difficulty is to push back our feelings. They are looked at as interfering with our rational thinking, so a disturbance. Not to be trusted or listened to. An unnecessary liability in this game of life. Press down, bury. Hold off for another day. Huwag tayo mag-drama! OA (overacting!). Tigil nga dyan! Walang mangyayari kung pure iyak lang! Be strong and don't show your feelings. I know one mother who shared that everytime her children would voice out feeling burdened, she would automatically turn on her recording, "No feelings! No feelings!" She was even proud of her style. I also recall another mother who would tend to label expression of emotions as some kind of indulgence in "psycho-babble." As if to say this is only for the weak and undeveloped psychologically.
Today it makes me cringe to hear such admonitions because I imagine the unconscious sufferings that a person experiences when having to deny what is intrinsically a part of who she is. These pains will embed further in her system, silenced until they become dormant, perhaps even split off and forgotten. But we know that the forgotten, the silenced, will rise again. Energy can only be suppressed but not eliminated. The sleeping giant will wake up one day. Like a volcano. Then we fall at mercy of its eruption.
So what might be more helpful in managing difficult emotions?
There have evolved so many different ways to deal with this. Thank God. There seems to be an evolution of consciousness that now gradually has made more of us realise that emotions and feelings are not bad in and of themselves. And not only not bad, but they possess the power of good. If we only can be more conscious of them and gradually learn to use them for our good.
How can this work in the concrete? One way is to first learn how to tune in regularly into oneself. What am I feeling right now? How was I feeling a while ago? This morning? Yesterday. Without any judgment, just name these feelings. I always like to remind patients that feelings are neither right nor wrong. They just are. Even the strongest and the most intense ones. It is not the feelings that have a right or wrong, but rather it is the actions that take place as a consequence of the feelings that have a rightness or wrongness to them.
So because they are not right nor wrong, we can dare to make a space for these as they come and go into ourselves. If and when we have learned to create a safe space within us, this space can become the holding area, or the container or simply the area within where we can safely allow the waves of feelings to pass through us. Imagine a part of us, the observing part, that can choose to stand back and watch the movie or the scene as it unfolds. What we will observe are the entry and exit of feelings. The rise and fall. The push and pull. The turbulent high wave rolling forth, and eventually the gradual lowering and receding in height of this wave. The flow in and flow out. Our space does not get diminished. Just like our observing part need not feel threatened. After all, it is only an observer. The bed of the ocean, or the land on which the typhoon passes, stays. The wind comes and goes. The harsh splashing of the waves come and go. Thunder and lightning appear then disappear. But when they are gone, silence once more. Peace once more.
I encourage the patient to name her feeling. To name the intensity level at which they are in the present moment. No judgment. No need to pretend too that this is fun. Of course it is not. There is pain you feel. The pain is real. But, the pain will not kill you or overthrow you if you don't let it. The pain may "break your bone" but will never eliminate you. It is the pain that eventually will be eliminated, when we successfully allow it to flow out.
So much to learn. So many nuances that one can add to this initial process... and even so many variations that many will also be able to contribute to this growing body of awareness of our emotions and feelings. Perhaps a million more to add on to our learning.
The point is not to master everything, but to just start with the first point. Take the first step. Start with increasing awareness of what is in the moment. Of pausing to tune inwards.
Pause, take deep breaths. In, out. In, out, In, out.. until the safe space starts to emerge. Then an an awareness that we can be in this space and just observe what comes and goes.
Beautifully staying in the present moment, without any judgments, but just simply observing. These split second moments of respite, of stillness and quiet within. These may seem empty, but they hold the fullness of all that has been, is to come, and what is.
The feeling waves are just that - ever in motion, but when we just stay present to their motion, we and the waves are still, together. One.
Can you figure that one out? 🤔😉😀
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